In the past, it has been common to dress a grinding wheel by passing the wheel by a dressing tool which may be a single point diamond or diamond wheel whose outer surface is the outer half of a toroid. If the grinding wheel is moved in the desired wheel contour path past the diamond dresser which is stationary, there are limits to the slope which the contour may have if dressing contact is to be confined to the working point or radius of the dresser. At slopes of contour greater than that limit, dressing contact between the diamond and wheel will not have the form or shape which the wheel movement was designed to produce. The problem is encountered when the grinding wheel has other than a cylindrical shape.
What is needed is a dressing method and apparatus where contact of the working point or radius of the dresser tool with the grinding wheel moving therepast in a wheel contour path is maintained and thus dresses the desired contour on the grinding wheel, especially when the contour is non-cylindrical.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,419,612 issued Dec. 6, 1983 to Reda et al. discloses a grinding machine having an electromechanical control system for controlling all of the movements of one or more slides on a single workhead grinding machine using a feed control computer interfaced with servo-drive means which in turn controls a slide electric drive motor means.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,023,310 issued May 17, 1977 to Lovely and Hobbs describes a grinding machine having a dresser assembly mounted pivotally on a slide bar for being brought into dressing engagement with a grinding wheel. A single point diamond is shown mounted in a rotatable holder; however, the single point diamond is rotated to form a desired shape such as convex or concave contour on the grinding wheel, not to maintain orthogonality between the diamond dresser and wheel contour path provided by movement of a compound slide assembly.